Old Fashioned Primroses

It is cold.
After a wonderful sunny March as is often said “We have paid for it!!” Cold nights,
freezing dawns, cold days, five degrees….rain….lots of it…and snow on the tops,
and sometimes even at our lower level. You wake to a skim of snow that thaws
over the morning.

It is the
young birds that worry me. Birds nested early and enthusiastically in March. I
hope they can keep those babies warm.

Plants just
slow down. After a fast start, many spring plants seem almost to be suspended
slowly opening their flowers and holding them close to retain a little warmth.

This year
there has been markedly increased interest in the old fashioned primroses, one
of our specialist groups of plants.﻿﻿

Primula Wanda

Primula Amy Smith

What are old
fashioned primroses?
Well they are cultivated primroses, often of some antiquity, all good garden
plants and hardy. Most are singles, some are wonderful old doubles and some are
polyanthus form.

This month, April, I am
canvassing the villages around Loch Ness in my bid to be re-elected as the Local
Highland Councillor, I am often looking over walls into gardens as I am going
around.I see lots of old primroses; they
are the ones that have survived for generations, passed from mother to
daughter, neighbour to neighbour. I see Wanda, that great old magenta primroses,
an old yellow polyanthus and recently a lovely pale mauve pink primrose, whose
name no one seems to know.

Primula Lilacina Plena

Look across
the range of primroses we sell, and you see some wonderful old varieties.
These plants do not have the zazzle colours, red, orange, yellow & pink
that you can buy in supermarkets and garden centres, but they do have quiet
subtle charm.
﻿﻿

I have more
than one favourite and the plants do look different from year to year. This
year, the pretty Amy Smith with soft pink flowers on dark bronze foliage and Lady
Greer, which has dainty Polyanthus heads of biscuit yellow.

And of
course then there are the doubles, how could I garden without the old alba
plena and the glorious Quakers Bonnet, lilacina plena, but they really are
another story and a wonderful one at that.
﻿﻿
Margaret